In the days before a vote is expected, the near-final version of the health care reform bill seems to have taken shape. Before they fine-tune the bill, however, Democrats must wait for the cost assessment from the Congressional Budget Office.

The editors of Drug Benefit Trends interviewed Peter Juhn, MD, MPH, president of the Therapeutic Resource Centers division at Medco Health Solutions, Inc. Click below to hear him discuss the TRC program, launched in 2007, which monitors prescription drug use in patients with specific chronic conditions and is designed to close gaps in care.

If you suffer from allergies or asthma, there are a variety of things you can do inside your home to limit your exposure to allergens that can cause asthma or make it worse.

Sporotrichosis is a fungal infection that typically results in cutaneous or lymphocutaneous disease, although other, more severe, life-threatening manifestations do occur. This article reviews updated treatment guidelines, which state that itraconazole has become the preferred therapy for most forms of infection. Amphotericin B remains the mainstay of treatment for severe cases, but lipid formulations are now preferred because of their more favorable toxicity profile. Also, fluconazole has been shown to be less effective than itraconazole and is no longer recommended except as an alternative for cutaneous and lymphocutaneous disease. [Drug Benefit Trends. 2010;22:49-52]

The US decision to freeze spending on HIV programs in several African countries has caused concern that some of the progress made in the global AIDS epidemic will be reversed.

Amidst the Democrats floundering to pass their health care reform bill after the balance of power shifted when a Republican won the Massachusetts Senate race, WJ “Billy” Tauzin, a Democrat turned Republican, announced that he will step down in June as head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

A 38-year-old woman presented with bruising and pain of the lower extremities and dyspnea on exertion. She had had these symptoms for 3 weeks. She denied hematuria, melena, hematemesis, fever, or abdominal pain. Results of routine blood work showed a hemoglobin level of 6.4 g/dL (19 months earlier, this level was 15.8 g/dL).

David B. Nash, MD, MBA, the Dr Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor of Health Policy and founding dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, provides an expert’s perspective on 2 issues in the current health care debate that are of particular concern to PCPs.

Time To Avoid Complacency: The Worst May Not Be Over Kaiser Family FoundationAlthough activity in North American is low, Dr Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization cautions that it is too soon to say the pandemic is over.

After Republican Scott Brown was elected into the US Senate in January, President Obama acknowledged that his health care reform bill could die on Capital Hill. As many Democrats looked to the White House for guidance about how to keep the bill on a forward path, President Obama seemed less than optimistic about the bill’s passage. At a fundraising event, the President stated “it’s very important for us to have a methodical, open process over the next several weeks, and then let’s go ahead and make a decision.” This statement was miles away from his previous exclamations of “Yes we can.”

Overdoses that are caused by prescription opioid may be on the rise.

Results of a large study showed that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) might be equally effective in both patients with unipolar depression and those with bipolar depression.1

Current guidelines for the management of bipolar depression are outdated because they are based on the definition and treatment of unipolar depression, accor

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may be an effective therapy for treatment-resistant bipolar depression, according to the results of a recent pilot study led by Guohua Xia,

Although rapid-cycling bipolar disorder has been linked to the use of antidepressants, these treatments may still have a role in the management of patients with bipolar depression, said Stephen V. Sobel, MD, clinical instructor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, in a presentation at the US Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress in Las Vegas.1 Patients with bipolar disorder spend most of their time in depression, and antidepressants can alleviate the symptoms, he said.

This study investigated the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of treatments for moderate to severe psoriasis from a managed health care systems perspective. An analysis was conducted of randomized clinical trials evaluating biologic and oral systemic medications and phototherapy for patients with moderate to severe psoriasis.